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Friday, 23 September 2011

23. Ostracic Voting

OK, the phrase ‘ostracic voting’ sounds
strange.This may partly be because I
have probably just made it up.Yes, it
is connected to the idea of ostracism which, like many of my favourite democratic
ideas, goes back to classical Athens.I
wondered whether it might be something that could be applied to the practice of
modern local democracy.

Agora Museum in Athens

I got the idea after a visit to the rather beautiful
Athens Agora Museum, where, as well as coming face to face with a real life
kleroterian as they used for sortitions, I came across some ostraca (ostracons?).Now these wonderful little broken pieces of
clay or shell where used for the process of ostracising (expelling) unwanted
politicians.

Each year the Athenians were asked in the assembly whether they wished to hold an
ostracism... If they voted
"yes", then an ostracism would be held two months later. In a section
of the agora
set off and suitably barriered, citizens scratched the name of a citizen they
wished to expel on pottery shards, and deposited them in urns. The presiding
officials counted the ostraka submitted and sorted the names into separate
piles. The person whose pile contained the most ostraka would be banished...

Banishment would be for 10 years although, as
property rights were essentially unaffected this constituted a political
suspension rather than any more significant – you could get the death penalty
for political crimes back then.Once the
term was up the victim could resume their place in the political order as
before – in special circumstances people could even be brought back early.

The benefit of ostracism for the Athenians was that
it provided a countermeasure against tyranny and could also help decide issues
of policy where particular positions were strongly associated with
individuals.With the rise of organised
factions, however, its use declined.

Ostraca in the Agora Museum in Athens

Ostracic Voting in Local Democracy Today

Thinking about this I wonder if there are at least
four ways ostracic voting might be used in local democracy:

1.Committee Meetings

Committees could be given the option to decide
whether to have an
vote and the ability to expel a member of the committee for any period of time.
This might improve the performance of the committee and keep individual members
on their toes.It would not affect political
balance as a replacement would come from the same party. However, party motives
may come to the fore and with a small group, the secret nature of the voting
might not be sufficient protection against these motives dominating. On the other hand, where the committee members
are genuinely concerned about the effectiveness of the group it gives them the
ability to remove unproductive, disruptive or uninterested individuals.

2.Council
Meetings

Council meetings could
be given not so much the power to recall, as the power to eject.Council as a body would have the option
to remove any unproductive, disruptive or uninterested individuals and force a
by election in their wards. Again, this
procedure could be subject to group politics but, with a secret vote, that
would be more difficult to arrange.

3.Recall
Elections

The procedure of recall elections gives voters the
chance to remove unwanted representatives. Ostracic voting provides a different
way to organise this. Every year voters would have the chance to nominate a
councillor they would like to see ostracised (this could be done on a ward or
council wide basis), the councillor with the most votes, perhaps with a minimum
threshold would be ostracised, and a by election held.

4.Local
Elections

Finally, ostracic voting might be applied to the
local election procedure itself. Voters could rank candidates, not in their
order of preference, but in their order of disapproval. Selection could take
place on the simple basis of the candidate least disliked being elected or
after a series or rounds similar to the alternative vote or single transferable
vote.

All of this might sounds weird but perhaps it is
not as weird as all that as this method is already popular.Just look at any number of reality TV shows such as Big Brother
to see ostracic voting in action.